_Dictionary of the Tarot_ by Bill Butler, 1975

[firemaiden]

I usually go into the used book stores, hoping against hope to find a Tarot book I won't feel like flinging on the floor in despair. Oh please God, let there be something that doesn't remasticate each card in small centered paragraphs, big I-can-read type and short don't-worry-we-won't-hurt you little phrases.

Today I found something intelligent!

Dictionary of The Tarot, by Bill Butler, Schocken Books, 1975.

The first sentence (I always judge first sentences) of the introduction reads:

It is incredible the amount of nonsense that has been written over the past 170 years regarding the Tarot Cards ...

.

For each of the Minor Arcana, The Dictionary compares the designs of the Marseille, the RWS, the Thoth, The Aquarian, and the "New" tarot (John Star Cook, 1969) and offers a compendium of the differing interpretations from these key players:

Case
Crowley
Douglas
Golden Dawn
Eden Gray
Grimaud
Huson
Kahn
Kaplan
Mathers
Papus
Thierens
Waite
and "suggested" -- (which I took to mean his own).

For the Majors, a brief iconographic history of each Arcana is followed by a looks at the designs of the

Gringonneur
Bembo
Swiss
Insight
Marsille
Italian
Wirth
Waite
BOTA
Aquarian
Crowley, and
The New Tarot

and offers the interpretations from

Case
Christian
Crowley
Douglas
Gray
GD
Grimaud
Huson
Kahn
Kaplan
Knight
Lind
Mathers
Mayananda
Papus
Sadhu
Thierens
Ussher
Waite
"Suggested"

There is a chapter on Methods of divination, explaining

• "the Celtic Method",
  the "Twenty-one Card Gypsy Method",
  "MacGregor Mathers' Third Method",
  "Planetary Arrangement",
  "The Crowley Divination" and
  "The Churchyard spread".

There are also charts of magical symbols and icons, and most useful, perhaps, of all, a Glossary of Terms and Symbols Relating to the Tarot.

How does he get so much in? (tiny little type )

[Rusty Neon]

Originally Posted by firemaiden

There is a chapter on Methods of divination, explaining[list]
...
"MacGregor Mathers' Third Method".

Hi FM ... You have me intrigued about this. Mathers gave the Celtic Cross to outer Golden Dawn members and The Opening of the Key set of layouts for inner GD members. What ise third method, O Firemaiden? Thanks.

[firemaiden]

Oy... it's a doozy. This book says the spread is adapted from mather's book,
the Tarot. It uses all 78 cards!!! (seven groups of 11, with the fool left out as signifier) (I'm paraphrasing and/or describing what I see in the diagrams with my own words.)

The Fool is separated and placed face down on the table.

The spread has a right wall (past), a left wall (future), and a bridge between them (present). Each wall has a buttress wall leaning against it, while the bridge has two layers.


a) THE PAST: 11 Cards (1-11) are dealt face down in ascending in vertical column at the right side of the spread.

b) THE FUTURE: 11 more (12-22) ascending in a column at the left side of the spread.

c) THE PRESENT: 11 more (23-33) are dealt in a horizontal row (left to right) (making a sort of roof or bridge between the two columns)

d) THE PAST part two: 11 more (34-44) ascend at an angle toward the right column

e) THE FUTURE part two: 11 more cards (45-55) ascend at an angle toward the left column

f) The PRESENT part two: 11 cards (56-66) form a row just underneath row "c" (which looks like a bridge)

g) the final 11 cards (67-77) go in a pile under the significator (the Fool) (faced down)


Reading.

-- read first in sequence (first card one, then card two, etc)

columns
a) and d) are read in sequence. (the past)
c) and f) are read in sequence. (the present)
b) and e) are read in sequence (the future)

-- then in pairs!
a) and d) first in parallel pairs. - cards 1-34, 2-35, etc (past)
c) and f) parallel pairs - match 23-56, 24-57 etc. (present)
b) and e) parallel pairs - match 12-45, 13-46, etc.

--THEN, in crossed pairs!! (matching heads and toes, so to speak)
a) and d) . - cards 1-44, 2-43, etc (past)
c) and f) - match 23-66, 24-65 etc. (present)
b) and e) - match 12-55, 13-54, etc.

--THEN (this is NUTS) place card 1 face up on top of card 66
card 2 on top of 65, until you have the whole deck back in one pile with the 33rd card on top, and DEAL them again, in a counterclockwise circle. Put the Fool and his 11 dummy cards at the 12:00 position, to make a whole new set of pairs. (there is a diagram in the book - woefully complicated)

(does this sound at all familiar?)

-- THEN...The final step is shuffle all 66 cards (not counting the fool and his 11 dummy cards), cut and choose ONE card.

Then this one card, along with the 11 significator cards (66-77) are dealt face up in a clock formation starting at eight o'clock and read like the 12 astrological "houses".

8:00 - money
7:00 - kindred and journeys
6:00 - inheritance
5:00 - children
4:00 - sickness
3:00 - marriage
2:00 - death
1:00 - long journeys
12:00 - honor
11:00 - friends
10:00 - enemies
9:00 - life and health.

I think I'd do it for about ten thousand dollars... ROFL

[Little Baron]

Hi FM

Just reached to my bookcase. I have a Bill Butler book that I got in a second hand shop as well - called the 'Definitive Tarot' and published by Rider. I am asuming it is the same as it was also published in 1975 and has the same chapters you mention. It must be as it has the same opening sentence.

Have only looked into the 'Pope' at the moment but was wondering what you think of the book as you seem to have delved deeper into it.

Yabs

[Little Baron]

Apparently, 'The Definitive Tarot' was the name given to the book in the UK. Might sit down and have an afternoon read of this one. I like the fact that the copy I have looks to be the first edition and is well worn. I get a bit bored with the slim and over stylised books you get these days; hopefully, this one will go to the heart of the matter - it has some good reviews, which I just found on the web.

YaYa

[Diana]

Darn. And I woke up this morning thinking "Seeing as I can't write a book about Tarot due to my poor writing skills, perhaps I could make some of kind a dictionary explaining all the key-words and what-not."

And now I see that it has been done. My dream only lasted a couple of hours. Too bad. At least I won't have to go and read up too much about guys prancing around in nerdy little robes in order to summarise them in a few sentences. May preserve my nerves a bit.

Sounds like an interesting book, firemaiden. Thanks for sharing.

[firemaiden]

That's interesting, Yaboot - from "dictionary" to "definitive" - LOL

what do I think about the book? I like it very very much, from what I've read so far. I like that Butler's no-nonsense viewpoint is informed by a collossal amount of research, (as opposed to being a glitzy re-packaging of "Tarot Dumbed-Down for the Retarded") - particularly interesting to me is how he traces the evolution of the interpretations.

The book is intelligent.

I find what he says about reversals particularly intelligent:
"In interpretation [of reversals] it is this writer's opinion that a reversed position merely implies one of the poles of interpretation of a card, the upright poistion providing the other. And the meaning is a fluctuation between those poles with reference to the surrounding cards"


LOL, Diana. What shall we do with you? You gotta get a gimmick

If you wanna make it,
Twinkle while you shake it.
If you wanna grind it,
Wait till you refined it.
If you wanna stump it,
Bump it with a trumpet!
Get yourself a gimmick and you too,
Can be a star!
(from Gypsy)

You have your work cut out for you my dear. This book is only the faintest beginning, heavy on the English perspective. It needs a massive infusion of French sources! Sharpen your pencil, Diana! Hurry! The world is waiting!

[Rusty Neon]

Hi FM ... Thanks for the summary of Mathers' Third Method. I can certainly see some loose parallels to his "The Opening of the Key" operations [TOOTK]. And they sometimes say that TOOTK is the "all-day method". This third method would seem to rival TOOTK.

[Cerulean]

Paul Foster Case, Alexander Crowley, some of the authors of the Golden Dawn, Eden Gray, new Paul Huson book (he's revised his theories), Stuart Kaplan, Papus (Dr. Gerard Encausse ) and Arthur Waite already...as well as Garrett Knight, Michael Dummett and Ron Decker's works...you are right, there's a nice synopsis in that book..

It sounds wonderful in terms of what treasures you found!

I do think Paul Huson's new 2004 book is worth having as well, though for updated information.

Regards,

Cerulean

[lionette]

I've found Butler's personal definition of certain cards to be interesting and unusual. Sorry I don't have the book nearby to find a precise example, but has anyone else noticed this?

Originally Posted by Diana

Darn. And I woke up this morning thinking "Seeing as I can't write a book about Tarot due to my poor writing skills, perhaps I could make some of kind a dictionary explaining all the key-words and what-not."

And now I see that it has been done. My dream only lasted a couple of hours. Too bad. At least I won't have to go and read up too much about guys prancing around in nerdy little robes in order to summarise them in a few sentences. May preserve my nerves a bit.

Sounds like an interesting book, firemaiden. Thanks for sharing.

But Diana, the numerology + suit method isn't very well represented in the Butler book. Mabye you are called to write a dictionary of the Marseilles' interpretations specifically? That one would sit nicely on my bookshelf next to Butler's!